Disappearing Clipping?

farss wrote on 10/2/2004, 7:26 PM
I'll admit I'm slightly confused. Client supplied source material from CD is pretty badly clipped. Quite noticeable on the Vegas TL and audibly noticable on playback on my reasonable gear through headphones.
I ran it through SFs Clipped Peak Restoration and the results are pretty good. Its vintage material so it wasn't that flash to start with but it still deserves to be heard minus the clipping.
But here's the truly odd part (or maybe not).
Made up a CD with the original and restored version for the client to listen to so they could hear the problem. Played back through my fairly average HiFi system both tracks sound OK, bring them back into Vegas from the CD and you can see and hear the difference.
I was expecting the un restored version to sound really horrid on my HiFi but it doesn't. So what I'm worried about is the client will think I'm BSing them, not that I'm going to charge them more to fix it although I'd much rather go back to the analogue masters.
Maybe this is just another example of why you need good monitor speakers to truly hear what something sounds like, I just hope this client takes the trouble to really listen to it, they've got better gear than most can afford (Genelec 5.1 setups etc) yet this division typically listens to the audio on their PCs speakers!
Anyone got any ideas on how I can get the client to really hear what I'm on about short of dragging them and the CD into one of their studios?

Bob.

Comments

bgc wrote on 10/5/2004, 1:50 PM
Maybe your "HiFi" has a soft clipping feature (to round the harsh clipping) to prevent problems?
Can you hear the clipping on a DiscMan and good headphones? That should be enough for them.
farss wrote on 10/5/2004, 2:36 PM
Much to my surprise the client has noticed it!
Maybe they took it into one of their studios and listened to it. I suspect I'll be going back to the master tapes, oh joy!
Now if I can only find out how to do a decent job of playing acetate disks as well (circa 1950) I'll be laughing.
Bob.